[liberationtech] Google confirms critical Android crypto flaw

[Stephan Neuhaus]

On 15.08.2013 16:25, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> ----- Forwarded message from Maxim Kammerer <mk at dee.su> -----
>
> Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 15:38:56 +0300
> From: Maxim Kammerer <mk at dee.su>
> To: liberationtech <liberationtech at lists.stanford.edu>
> Subject: Re: [liberationtech] Google confirms critical Android crypto flaw
> Reply-To: liberationtech <liberationtech at lists.stanford.edu>
>
> On Thu, Aug 15, 2013 at 2:34 PM, Nathan of Guardian
> <nathan at guardianproject.info> wrote:
>> The best description is here:
>> http://armoredbarista.blogspot.ch/2013/03/randomly-failed-weaknesses-in-java.html


> Unbelievable… It seems that PRNG implementers suffer from NIH
> syndrome. If you are going to use /dev/urandom, then use it all the
> time, and rely on code that's reviewed and maintained by thousands of
> kernel people, not just your favorite buggy seeded PRNG du-jour.

Or, if you decide to roll your own, at LEAST read Peter Gutmann's 1998 
Usenix Security paper on the topic [1] or read the respective chapter in 
his book [2].

Stephan

[1] http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/usenix98.pdf
[2] Peter Gutmann, Cryptographic Security Architecture, Springer Verlag, 
2004.